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John Deere

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: John Deere
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(born Feb. 7, 1804, Rutland, Vt., U.S. — died May 17, 1886, Moline, Ill.) U.S. inventor and manufacturer of agricultural implements. He was apprenticed to a blacksmith and later set up his own smithy and moved to Illinois. There he found, through the frequent repairs he had to make, that wood and cast-iron plows, used in the eastern U.S. from the 1820s, were unsuited to the heavy, sticky prairie soils. By 1838 he had sold three steel plows of his own design; by 1846 he had sold about 1,000, and by 1857 10,000. In 1868 Deere & Co. was incorporated, and it went on to become the largest U.S. manufacturer of farm machinery.

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Biography: John Deere
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The American inventor and manufacturer John Deere (1804-1886) was one of the first to design agricultural tools and machines to meet the specific needs of midwestern farmers.

John Deere was born in 1804 in modest circumstances in Rutland, Vt., the third son of William Rinold and Sarah Yates Deere. After receiving the limited education available to a country boy, Deere was apprenticed at 17 to a blacksmith in Middleburn, Vt. He completed his apprenticeship in 4 years and became a master craftsman.

In 1836 Deere left Vermont for Grand Detour, Ill., where he found ready employment in his trade. He prospered, for the farmers kept him fully occupied supplying their customary needs. They also presented him with an unusual problem posed by the local soil. The soil of Illinois and other prairie areas was not only difficult to plow because of its thick sod covering but also tended to clog the moldboards of plows. Deere tried covering the moldboard and cutting a plowshare from salvaged steel. Steel surfaces tended to shed the thick soil and were burnished by the abrasive action of the soil. Deere's new plows, introduced in 1839, sold readily, and within a decade the production of plows by Deere and his new associate, Leonard Andrus, exceeded 1,000 per year. Deere parted company with his partners to move to Moline, Ill., which was better situated for a market, transportation, and raw materials.

Repeated experiments produced an excellent moldboard and demonstrated that further improvements in the plow were dependent on using better-quality steel. Deere imported such steel from an English firm until a Pittsburgh firm cast the first plow steel in the United States for him. Deere's production of plows soared to 10,000 by 1857 as agriculture in the Midwest grew to meet the unprecedented demands of the growing home and export market.

The business was incorporated in 1868 with Deere and his son, Charles, in the executive positions. During the Civil War the company prospered as it diversified its output to include wagons, carriages, and a full line of agricultural equipment. It also adopted modern administrative practices and built an efficient sales, distribution, and service organization which reached into all parts of America. Deere remained active in the management of the company until his fatal illness in 1886. He was succeeded by his son.

John Deere married twice. His first wife, Demarius Lamb, died in 1865. Two years later he married her younger sister, Lucinda Lamb.

Further Reading

Full-length studies of Deere are Neil M. Clark, John Deere: He Gave to the World the Steel Plow (1937), and Darragh Aldrich, The Story of John Deere: A Saga of American Industry (1942). See also Stewart H. Holbrook, Machines of Plenty: Pioneering in American Agriculture (1955), and Wayne D. Rasmussen, Readings in the History of American Agriculture (1960).

Additional Sources

Broehl, Wayne G., John Deere's company: a history of Deere & Company and its times, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1984.

Collins, David R., Pioneer plowmaker: a story about John Deere, Minneapolis: Carolrhoda Books, 1990.

WordNet: John Deere
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Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: United States industrialist who manufactured plows suitable for working the prairie soil (1804-1886)
  Synonym: Deere

Wikipedia: John Deere
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
This article is about John Deere, the person. For the tractor, see List of John Deere tractors. For the company with the same name, see Deere & Company.
John Deere

John Deere (February 7, 1804 – May 17, 1886) was an American blacksmith and manufacturer who founded Deere & Company— the largest agricultural and construction equipment manufacturers in the world. Born in Rutland, Vermont, Deere moved to Illinois and invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837.

Contents

Early life

After a meager education, he was apprenticed in 1821, at age 17, by his mother. He served four years as apprentice to Captain Benjamin Lawrence, a prosperous Middlebury blacksmith, and entered the trade for himself in 1825.[1][2]

He married in 1827;[3] the couple had five children.[citation needed] Deere's business was not doing very well, and he was having trouble with creditors.[citation needed] Facing bankruptcy, Deere sold the shop to his father-in-law and departed for Illinois.[citation needed] He left his wife and family, who were to join him later.

Steel plow

A monument in Middlebury, Vermont marking the shop in the town where John Deere learned the blacksmith trade.

Deere settled in Grand Detour, Illinois. As there were no other blacksmiths in the area, he had no difficulty finding work. Growing up in his father’s Rutland, Vermont, tailor shop, Deere had polished and sharpened needles by running them through sand. This polishing helped the needles sew through tough leather.[4] Deere found that cast-iron plows were not working very well in the tough prairie soil of Illinois and remembered the polished needles.[4] Deere came to the conclusion that a plow made out of highly polished steel and a correctly shaped moldboard (the self-scouring steel plow) would be better able to handle the soil conditions of the prairie, especially its sticky clay.[5]

There are varying versions of the inspiration for Deere's famous steel plow. In another version he recalled the way the polished steel pitchfork tines moved through hay and soil and thought that same effect could be obtained for a plow.[3]

The John Deere House in Grand Detour, Illinois, built 1836

In 1837, Deere developed and manufactured the first commercially successful cast-steel plow. The wrought-iron framed plow had a polished steel share, which made it ideal for the tough soil of the Midwest and worked better than other plows.[3] By early 1838, Deere completed his first steel plow and sold it to a local farmer, Lewis Crandall, who quickly spread word of his success with Deere's plow. Subsequently two neighbors soon placed orders with Deere. By 1841, Deere was manufacturing 75-100 plows per year.[3]

In 1843, Deere partnered with Leonard Andrus to produce more plows to keep up with demand. However, the partnership became strained due to the two men's stubbornness - while Deere wished to sell to customers outside Grand Detour, Andrus opposed a proposed railroad through Grand Detour - and Deere's distrust of Andrus' accounting practices.[6] In 1848, Deere dissolved the partnership with Andrus and moved to Moline, Illinois, because of the city's location on the Mississippi River, which helped make it a transportation hub.[citation needed] By 1855, Deere's factory sold more than 10,000 such plows.

From the beginning, Deere insisted on making high-quality equipment. He once said, "I will never put my name on a product that does not have in it the best that is in me."[7] Following the Panic of 1857, as business improved, Deere left the day-to-day operations to his son Charles.[8] In 1868, Deere incorporated his business as Deere & Company.[8]

Later life

Later in life Deere focused most of his attention on civil and political affairs. He served as President of the National Bank of Moline, a director of the Moline Free Public Library, and was a trustee of the First Congregational Church.[2][9] Deere also served as Moline's second mayor for a two year term, where despite his disastrous handling of liquor licensing,[citation needed] Deere improved the city's infrastructure by having streetlights, sewage and water piping (including fire hydrants) installed and sidewalks repaired, and bought eighty-three acres for $23,056 for the creation of a city park.[citation needed] Due to chest pains and dysentery Deere refused to run for a second term.[2][10] Deere died at home on May 17, 1886.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Women in John Deere's Life: Sarah Yates Deere 1780-1826," Deere & Company, official website. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
  2. ^ a b c "John Deere: A Biography," Deere & Company, official website. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
  3. ^ a b c d Leffingwell, Randy. John Deere, (Google Books), MotorBooks/MBI Publishing Company, 2004, p. 8, (ISBN 0760318611)
  4. ^ a b "170 Years of John Deere," The Toy Tractor Times, January 2007. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
  5. ^ Attoun, Marti. "American Innovator, Agricultural Icon," AmericanProfile.com, 17 April 2005. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
  6. ^ Dahlstrom, Neil and Dahlstrom, Jeremy.The John Deere Story: A Biography of Plowmakers John & Charles Deere. Northern Illinois University Press, 2005, pg. 18
  7. ^ Magee, David. The John Deere Way: Performance that Endures (Google Books), John Wiley and Sons, 2005, p. 36, (ISBN 0471734292), accessed October 21, 2008.
  8. ^ a b Haycraft, William R. Yellow Steel: The Story of the Earthmoving Equipment Industry, (Google Books), University of Illinois Press, 2002, p. 86, (ISBN 0252071042), accessed October 21, 2008.
  9. ^ "John Deere: Founder and President 1837-1886," Deere & Company, official website. Retrieved 22 May 2007.
  10. ^ Dahlstrom, Neil and Dahlstrom, Jeremy.The John Deere Story: A Biography of Plowmakers John & Charles Deere. Northern Illinois University Press, 2005, pgs. 101-104

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